Tag: american modernist

  • Scott Frances

    Scott Frances

    Scott Frances was born to a New York city home filled with mid-century furniture, two older brothers and a lot of art on the walls and books on the shelves. His father was a creative director at an advertising agency, and his mother was an editor for decorating magazines. Therefore it is evident he had a very creative background. In Scott Frances’ childhood, he was mostly drawing and painting, often trying to copy Picasso’s. After completing his studies in journalism and art history at Northwestern University, he returned to NYC to work under the auspices of the legendary architectural photographer Ezra Stoller. It was during this time that he began to document the work of the great American modernist architect Richard Meier, a collaboration that spans three decades.

    Scott Frances’ subject matter has always been rooted in architecture and the decorative arts, but as his work has evolved he incorporated people and animals into his images. He became more interested in the atmosphere of the spaces, certainly in their volume and quality of the available light, but also the touch, sound and smell, the mood. Frances never supplements the lighting, instead he shoots multiple exposures, and in photoshop he layers these exposures together to render an image that best captures the sensory experiences of being in the environment. The compositions and narrative themes in his work speaks to recurrent threads found throughout art history.

  • Man Ray

    Man Ray

    Man Ray, born Emmanuel Radnitzky, (August 27, 1890 – November 18, 1976) was an American modernist artist who spent most of his career in Paris, France. He was a significant contributor to the Dada and Surrealist movements, although his ties to each were informal. He produced major works in a variety of media but considered himself a painter above all. He was best known in the art world for his avant-garde photography, and he was a renowned fashion and portrait photographer. Ray is also noted for his work with photograms, which he called “rayographs” in reference to himself.